Petition

As the Senate debates next year’s Pentagon budget, Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and other Pentagon contractors are hoping the F-35 isn’t under the spotlight.The entire F-35 fleet was grounded due to an engine fire, making the F-35 a no-show at a high profile international air show this week. They’re also hoping nobody noticed Canada just hit pause on their F-35 purchase to evaluate other options.

Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and other Pentagon contractors are profiting off the taxpayer’s dime and funneling money into campaign coffers and lobbying. Even war hawk Senator John McCain describes the F-35 as the “worst example of the military-industrial-congressional complex.”1

They’re rigging the system so the F-35 wins and working families lose as vital programs like food assistance, infrastructure repair and education are slashed again and again.

So what could we have invested in instead of the most wasteful program in the history of the military? Our friends at Think Progress recently broke down the numbers and found that we could buy every homeless person in the U.S. a mansion, feed every school kid in the country or boost infrastructure funding needed to rebuild America.2

Take a moment to sign onto the “Project On Government Oversight” organization’s petition and Tell the Air Force to Re-Think Its Decision to Station the F-35A in Vermont at: http://t.co/EJcXCiR34y

It will take you less than a minute to add your voice to this petition! Then please share this request with your personal email list – as many friends or family that you can ask to sign will help pressure the USAF to delay or block this basing from our densely populated residential areas.

Opponents of the proposed F35 basing in Vermont have just gained a powerful ally with the help of POGO, which has launched a petition to focus national attention and pressure on the Air Force’s inappropriate and out-of-scale F35 basing proposal in our residential neighborhoods.

According to the Air Force Times, “The Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based organization focusing on government misconduct, urged Air Force officials to delay the move until the F-35A’s safety record is better established, since the prospective base is in a residential area.

“Given myriad uncertainties with the Joint Strike Fighter program and other troubling concerns, and specifically future funding levels for testing and flight hours, it is clearly prudent to delay the basing decision for this unproven aircraft program,” POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian wrote in the Nov. 6 letter.

“It is irresponsible for you to rush to beddown this immature aircraft in a residential zone,” Brian wrote. “If you believe there is indeed some urgency, then you should not needlessly endanger the local population and should follow past precedent and place the F-35A in a less dangerous location.””

There is so much at stake here for our Vermont communities, and until a track record can be established for the F35s, it’s not justifiable to impose the risk of noise, safety, health, or property value damages on residential neighborhoods, no matter who it benefits.

Our gratitude goes to POGO for its work to advocate for a more sane, safe and sensible F35 basing decision than here in our residential communities. Many thanks to all who are taking action to fight this inappropriate and out-of-scale proposed basing in Vermont that would bring 50 years of damaging noise and air pollution and degradation of our environment, our people and our neighborhoods.